Managing Shims in an Enterprise

Updated: May 15, 2009

Applies To: Windows 7

When addressing application compatibility issues in preparation for a deployment of Windows® 7, among the most flexible and powerful tools available are application compatibility fixes, or shims. However, most organizations do not leverage shims to the extent that they could, either because they don’t understand the underlying technology or because they do not have a process in place to manage shims over the lifetime of the applications they manage.

In this document, Chris Jackson, from the Microsoft® Windows Application Experience SWAT Team, shares his experience and best practices working with large enterprise customers to address application compatibility issues by using shims and to manage an organization’s custom shim databases. This document provides reusable guidance for reducing the cost of deployment for Windows 7 by accelerating the mitigation of blocking application compatibility issues—including understanding how shims work, when to consider applying shims, and how to manage the shims you do apply.